To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. The late Gayle Hunnicutt of dubious and questionable memory. RIP
Merry Christmas and a happy new year. I and my friend and colleague doctor Watson. Will be here tonight to do our stories on Christmas Day. That will be our present to all our fans @Boswell221B
King Ramesses III flanked by Horus & Seth, c. 1186-1155 B.C.
▫️In this rare granite ensemble from Medinet Habu, King Ramesses III stands majestically between two ancient rivals, Horus and Seth; gods far more accustomed to crossing spears than sharing a plinth.
All three figures rise to roughly equal height, carved fully in the round, their left legs striding forward in timeless assertion. The pharaoh, clad in a finely pleated shendyt kilt and adorned with the many-rowed usekh collar, wears the white hedjet crown of Upper Egypt; in one hand he clasps the ankh of life, in the other the sceptre of power.
To his right, falcon-headed Horus, his palm hovering against the royal crown in a gesture of consecration. To his left, and rather astonishingly, stands Seth, lord of desert gales and distant frontiers, performing the identical rite.
Statues of Seth are exceedingly scarce. After his mythical slaying of Osiris and long war against Horus, he became an ambivalent deity: feared, needed, powerful, but seldom honoured in temple sculpture. Yet, #Egyptian theology granted him dominion over arid lands and foreign peoples. Thus, the tableau proclaims a double coronation: Horus bestows rule over the fertile Nile Valley, while Seth (tamed, for the moment) confers authority beyond #AncientEgypt’s cultivated borders.
Fashioned during the 20th Dynasty, this grouping not only celebrates Ramesses III’s sovereignty at home and abroad but also reminds us that even the storm-god of chaos could be harnessed to uphold royal order, if only for as long as the granite endures. One of the very few monuments to depict Seth in harmonious attendance, it is as exceptional as the mythic détente it portrays.
https://t.co/2vTAWFxQse